The New South Wales capital is named ‘the most reputable city in the world’ via international study

Mashable reports that research and advisory firm has named the New South Wales capital as the “most reputable city in the world” for 2015.

The institute polled polled 19,000 respondents from G8 countries about 100 well-known cities and used their answers to build profiles on the “politics, environment, friendliness of citizens, economy and safety of each city.”

Sydney achieved the top score of 79.1, followed by another Australian city, Melbourne, with a score of 78.9.

What do high scores mean for a city?

Cities with better reputations are more likely to gain foreign investments, visitors and job seekers, Fernando Prado, the managing partner at the Reputation Institute, told Mashable. For every point a city gains in its reputation, he said, there will be a .04% increase in arrivals the next year.

New York rates highly in terms of economy and environment but fails to make the top 10, as the city fails to garner sufficient trust or admiration from the international respondents. Prado calls this “a negative emotional halo.”

San Francisco is the highest ranking American city to rate on the reputable list, coming in at 24th, and New Orleans is the only American city with a positive emotional halo.